


Somewhere, the Graveyard Hag Is Laughing

by imaginary_golux



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Dinosaurs, F/M, Magical Accidents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: For the February Ficlet Challenge prompt "Dinosaurs."Raoul and Buri were planning to have a nice evening wandering in the market; instead, there are zombie dinosaurs. For a wonder, it's not Daine's fault.Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	Somewhere, the Graveyard Hag Is Laughing

Buri stares up, and up, and up, and for a long moment she cannot find any words at all. When she does, they aren’t anything Raoul expects:

“Did someone murder Numair again?”

“...What?” Raoul asks, as the enormous...bone-monster...lumbers past their hiding place, and then his mind catches up with him. “Oh shit, _Daine_.”

“Better hope it’s Daine - or one of Numair’s experiments gone wrong,” Buri says grimly.

Raoul watches another, smaller bone-monster lean over to peer in through an open window. A chorus of screams rise out of the building. “They don’t seem as...destructive as the ones in Carthak,” he says warily. The bone-monster straightens up again without doing more than look at people. It’s only ‘smaller’ in that it’s about the size of a giant; the other one was the size of a _townhouse_.

“For which I shall burn an offering to every god I can name,” Buri says. “And the next time Alanna tells stories about seeing the fall of Ozorne’s palace, I am not going to even _think_ she might be exaggerating.” Another bone-monster stops on the street outside their little alley and looks down at them, head tiny atop a long, long neck of yellow-white bone. Raoul braces himself, wondering if he’ll be fast enough to get Buri out of the way should it decide to attack - flat-toothed or not, it could do some serious damage if it cared to - and it looks away again, attention apparently caught by a park down the street. It lumbers towards the trees.

“Mithros, Mynoss, and Shakith,” Raoul says, more shakily than he cares to admit. “I will never complain about giants again. Come on, we should try to make it to the palace; that’s where they’re coming from, I think.”

“Palace still standing?” Buri asks.

“Far as I can tell, yes,” Raoul says.

They make it another five or six blocks, ducking down alleyways every time they see even a glimpse of yellow-white bone, before there’s a rumble that shakes the street below them, and every bone-monster within sight seems to heave a great sigh and collapse in on itself, becoming simply heaps of ancient, motionless bones.

“Huh,” Buri says, and heads for the palace at a run, Raoul on her heels.

They find Daine and Numair outside Numair’s tower, with Alanna and Jon and Thayet and a deeply amused George and half a dozen other very interested people in a wide ring, watching Daine read Numair the riot act better than half a dozen drill sergeants could do. Raoul leans back against a convenient tree and tugs Buri in against his chest so they can watch in comfort.

“...and next time when I tell you not to _mess_ with things because they are _divine powers_ that are frankly _not meant for us_ , you brilliant _idiot_ , do not assume that just because you are a _black-robe_ you can deal with _raising the dead_ better than I could!” Daine finishes, flushed very red and panting. Numair is sprawled out on his back, looking rather as though he’s just finished running around the palace five or six times - or performing a ridiculously complicated bit of magic that got out of hand. He pretty clearly can’t get up.

“Magelet,” he croaks, “I will swear to any god you care to name that I will not be quite this stupid again, except I suspect I can’t actually promise that. But I can definitely promise not to do _this_ again. Now could you please help me up?”

Daine makes a noise rather like an angry dragon - Raoul and Buri have spent enough time around Kitten to know what that sounds like - and turns on her heel to stomp away. It’s George who comes over to help the exhausted mage to his feet.

“I haven’t seen someone in a temper like that since the last time my Lioness got her fur ruffled,” he says. “Now have we learned a lesson, my lad?”

Numair attempts to glare, which goes ill with the way he’s listing in George’s grip, legs clearly not ready to hold him. “I miscalculated,” he says with great dignity, and Buri shakes with laughter in Raoul’s arms.

“Never a dull moment around here,” she says. “Shall we go round up some people to get those bones put back where they’re _supposed_ to be - wherever that is?”

“I think they might actually belong to Carthak,” Raoul says. “ _We_ don’t have an enormous hall of bone-monsters.”

“Well, that’ll be an interesting conversation with Kaddar, I’m sure, and thank the gods it’s Thayet who gets to have it and not me,” Buri says, leading the way towards the barracks of the Queen’s Riders. “You get some of your big strapping King’s Own lads, I’ll grab some of the Riders, we can get this taken care of before the Lower City decides to start selling bone-bits?”

“As always, your plans are impeccable,” Raoul says, and bends to kiss her before heading off to explain to his lads that their quiet evening is going to be full of loading enormous bones into carts. Honor and glory - and, as always, plenty of mud.


End file.
